Perhaps the reward of the spirit who tries is not the goal but the exercise.

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that? Come up with a smiling face, It's nothing against you to fall down flat/ But to lie there-that's a disgrace.

Oh, trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce, Or a trouble is what you make it. And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts, But only how did you take it.

Fencing is a game of living chess, a match where reflexes only work in combination with intent, and mind and body must work together at every moment.

For someone who never stood still, Lila felt like a pin in Kell's world. One he was sure to snag on.

She used to think that if she stole enough, the want would fade, the hunger would go away, but maybe it wasn’t that simple. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of what she didn’t have, of what she wasn’t, but what she was.